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Hunter Gatherers and the Crisis of Civilization

Author

Listed:
  • John M. Gowdy

    (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York)

Abstract

Stone Age Economics initiated a lively debate about the quality of hunter-gatherer life that has now lasted fifty years. Since the initial debates a large body of ethnographic evidence, and modern techniques such as DNA analysis, has confirmed Marshall Sahlins’ basic insights. Prior to the widespread adoption of agriculture human societies were characterized by egalitarian social structures and economies based on the sustainable use of environmental resources. Only after agriculture and state societies did hierarchical caste systems and exploitation of nature become the norm. Today, inequality has reached staggering levels and exploitation of the natural world has decimated non-human nature and undermined the climatic stability that made modern agriculture and civilization possible. Homo sapiens existed for some 300,000 years without these human-caused existential threats. Hunter-gatherers tell us that (1) it is not “human nature” to be greedy and exploitative, and (2) hierarchical and repressive societies are not “natural” to the human condition. Pogo was wrong. The enemy is not “us” but rather the peculiar economic system we stumbled into 10,000 years ago. Understanding how hunter-gatherer economies functioned as social systems has direct relevance for today’s environmental and social policies.

Suggested Citation

  • John M. Gowdy, 2021. "Hunter Gatherers and the Crisis of Civilization," Annals of the Fondazione Luigi Einaudi. An Interdisciplinary Journal of Economics, History and Political Science, Fondazione Luigi Einaudi, Torino (Italy), vol. 55(1), pages 35-54, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:fle:journl:v:55:y:2021:i:1:p:35-54
    DOI: 10.26331/1132
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hie Lim Kim & Aakrosh Ratan & George H. Perry & Alvaro Montenegro & Webb Miller & Stephan C. Schuster, 2014. "Khoisan hunter-gatherers have been the largest population throughout most of modern-human demographic history," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 5(1), pages 1-8, December.
    2. Colin Camerer & Linda Babcock & George Loewenstein & Richard Thaler, 1997. "Labor Supply of New York City Cabdrivers: One Day at a Time," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(2), pages 407-441.
    3. Joseph Henrich & Steve J. Heine & Ara Norenzayan, 2010. "The Weirdest People in the World?," RatSWD Working Papers 139, German Data Forum (RatSWD).
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Agricultural Transition; Egalitarian Societies; Hunter-Gatherers; Pleistocene Overkill;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • A13 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - Relation of Economics to Social Values
    • B52 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - Current Heterodox Approaches - - - Historical; Institutional; Evolutionary; Modern Monetary Theory;
    • Z13 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification

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